There are a number of situations where a number of people are having a shared experience and it would be desirable to have a video record of the experience. In the current art, this would involve one or more of the participants recording the experience, such as with a video camera or a smart-phone or some other mobile device.
The person making the recording might then forward the video to others via email or a social media website, twitter, YouTube, or the like. If two or more people made recordings, the different recordings might also be shared in the same manner.
Sometimes there may not be any single content file that encompasses the entire event. In that situation it may be desired to stitch together two or more content files to create a single file that provides a more complete recorded version of the event.
Such a combining of content files involves the ability to assign a given content file its proper location in space and time. In the prior art this is sometimes accomplished by using other content files to help in defining a timeline on which each content file may be placed. Provided with multiple content files, such as video/audio recordings, it is possible to group and assign recordings to events, and find the sequence and overlap of each of the recordings within an event.
At a particular moment in time, if there are two or more content files that are available, it is useful to have a system in place that allows a user to choose which file to use for that moment. Typically this is a manual process known as “editing” and has been in use in the motion picture and television industry for many years. In some cases, it involves the physical cutting a splicing of film strip segments into an integrated whole. In other cases, content segments are selected digitally and integrated in a processing system.